Catapults
and leaf-blowers were among the many innovative devices built by students for
the 2017 Invention Challenge, an annual engineering competition at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

Middle
schools and high schools were represented from across the greater Los Angeles area.
Three teams even required passports, with students coming from Tanzania and
Ethiopia.

This
year's "Wiffle Ball Loft Contest" required competitors to create a
device to launch up to 10 wiffle balls into a plastic tub located 19 feet, 8
inches (6 meters) away within a one-minute time allotment. The challenges were
many: launching at the best angles with the varying wind directions; making
sure the device was initiated by only one method; and even preventing the
wiffle ball from breaking, which would result in disqualification.

The
winners were from Southern California: "Project Defying Gravity" from
Diamond Bar High School; "Cre8tive" from South East High School in
Southgate; and "The Lizards" from Lawndale High School.

Paul
MacNeal, a mechanical systems engineer at JPL, created the Invention Challenge
20 years ago to inspire students to pursue careers in engineering -- and have
fun in the process. MacNeal said the event has influenced previous participants
to recreate the competition in their local communities -- as far away as
Istanbul.

"When
I was in high school, I thought being involved with NASA-JPL was unattainable,"
MacNeal said. "I wanted to change that and inspire competitors to pursue
engineering careers."

Yasin
Giray, an Ethiopian volunteer teacher who brought the Ethiopian team to JPL,
said Africa generally does not have enough opportunities for his students to
show their skills in the science and technology fields.

"We
encountered some difficulties along the way. Ethiopia does not sell the wiffle
balls used in the contest, so we practiced with balls made of a different
plastic," Giray said. "We could only practice when we arrived in the U.S.,
but we knew we had to take this opportunity."

Diamond
Bar High School's first place team, "Project Defying Gravity," was a
team of two. They developed a device elastically powered through a surgical
tube calibrated to use multiple strengths to adjust to changing winds.

"A
specific gelato container is the perfect size to fit a wiffle ball. So, we ate
a lot of ice cream to use them in our device," Megan Ho, one of the two
team members said. "I feel elated that we won. This competition has made
me want to pursue engineering more -- specifically mechanical engineering."

Kenneth
Chew, from the "PACKS" team representing Diamond Bar, was so inspired
by JPL missions and launches that he brought lucky peanuts for his team to eat
before launch - a JPL tradition before major mission events. He even designed a
mission logo inspired by JPL mission patches.